Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1887-12-08

in Lecture room NJ. f. church, De
cember 18th.
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At the last meeting of the Union
Mrs. T. Y. Hutchinson was elected
secretary in place of Mrs. S. E.
Shepard, resigned.
I've a darling girl and precious boy
And side by side.
My joy and pride,
They stand; look at them both, and then
All! how cansl choose
Which Of the two
Shall be the more pure;
/ cannot, am sure, can your
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THE FARMER AND THE SALOON.
The great argument used for IL
censing the saloons is that revenue
is secured to essen taxation; license
money will build sidewalks, support
schools and do many other things
which otherwise would have to be
paid for directly out of the pockets
of the taxpayers. Prof. Foster and
DIR. Herrick Johnson have in pre-
ceding "Timely Talks" so well
shown the fallacy of this claim, we
spend no time on it. There ls
another phase of the question to
which we wish to call the especial
attention Of our farmer friends. 1t
is this: License money does not de-
crease your taxes one cent, but the
saloons do increase your taxes enor-
mously. You are not taxed to build
sidewalks, light the streets, or do
any of the things it is claimed the
license money does for the town.
But YOU are taxed, and that right
heavily, to pay the county's bills for
courts, jails, poor-houses, care OF the
insane, and things like that. The
land you own pays the bulk OF the
county taxes; besides that, you are
often taken from your work at the
busiest season Of the year to sit on
grand or petit juries, two, three or
four weeks at time, when every
DAYS absence foots up dead loss
to you
What do these courts do? Elk.
anime the docket of any county
where liquor is sold, and see if
whisky is not at the bottom of fully
oue-half the criminal cases. A man
goes into licensed saloon, gets
drunk, comes out raving lunatic,
murders another man, and you try,
convict, and hang him, or put hlm
in prison for life Such a case IN
my own county lately cost in court
expenses $4,000. The county
which means mainly the farmers
footed the bill while the city pocket
ed the thousand dollar fee for the
license, which allowed the liquor
that did the deed to be sold.
Again, we have just built a $40,
600 Jail, and it is pretty well hlled
with the fruits of the saloon. You
paid larger proportion of the $40,
600 than the city did; it affords SAC
Communications" to very few of your
class, aud you receive not a cent OF
the license fee paid by the saloons
that had the biggest share in filling
it. The poor-hoase and farm are
Just outside the city limits, and YOU
feel flattered when the state author
ities report it the best-kept lnstltu
ton of the kind in the state Wei
You may, for you are back Of IN,
institution, SO far as money goes
for taxes You pay, in large measure
sustain it. But It's physician, him
self a drinking man, not u temper
anee fanatic, reports, again and
again aud again, to your Supervisors
that at least three-iourths Of the IN
mates come there through the drink
ing habit, either in themselves OF
others. As though to substantiatt
his opinion, counties whore no liquor
is obtainable show few inmates il
their poorho houses, and their jall'
often stand empty
The case in a nutshell in this: Il
there Is any good coming from Ii
crnse-which we deny-the city gets